Aiken Graded School

Front inscription

This park is the site of Aiken Graded School, a two-story brick school built 1924-25. It was built for black pupils in grades 1-7 and was one of almost 500 S.C. schools funded in part by the Julius Rosenwald Foundation 1917-1932. Black Aiken physician Dr. C.C. Johnson raised $3,500 in the black community toward the total cost of $33,500. Black brick mason Elliott Ball supervised the school’s construction.

Reverse inscription

The school, described as “one of the best in the state” when it was being built, had ten classrooms, a library, and an auditorium seating 600. It opened in the fall of 1925, with principal W.D. Drake, nine teachers, and almost 300 students. The school, the only black elementary school in Aiken until new schools began to be built in 1954, closed in 1969. It was demolished in 1973.